PARIS – Sure, NORINCO, China’s lead military manufacturer didn’t have the real thing, but they did display a model of the Sky Dragon air defense system and Main Battle Tank 3000 in development.
The medium range surface-to-air missile system can detect up to 144 targets provided target guidance for 12 missiles simultaneously. The radar has a range of 130 km with a missile target engagement range from 30m to 20km in altitude.
The system is broken up into three elements: a fire distribution vehicle, an IBIS 130 3D target designation radar as well as up to six launching units each outfitted with four suface-to-air-missiles.
The missile is a single-stage solid propellant. It has a single-shot kill probability against a fighter aircraft of 80 percent, said Wang Cheng, the West Asia Department assistant general manager for NORINCO.
China’s North Industries Corporation (NORINCO) also displayed their Main Battle Tank 3000 the company hopes to deliver to the Chinese Army in two years, Cheng said. It’s one of the few, if not the only, company to be developing a main battle tank.
The tank can reach speeds up to 42 miles per hour with a cruising range of 500 km. It has a fording depth of four to five meters and a trench of 2.7 meters. The maximum gradient is 60 percent.
Engineers mounted a 125mm smoothbore gun onto the MBT 3000. The main gun can fire APFSDS, HEAT and HE shells and gun launched missiles with a maximum missile range reaching 5,000 meters.
MBT 3000 also features a 12.7 mm anti-aircraft machine gun and a 7.62mm coaxial machine gun. Tankers can also fire from 8 76mm smoke grenade launchers and 4 76mm shrapnel grenade launchers.
It carries 38 rounds of main ammunition with a loading speed of eight rounds per minute with 22 rounds on the loader. An un-cooled thermal imagery is installed for the driver while a second generation cooled thermal imager is provided for gunner and the tank commander.
The engine is a water-cooled turbocharged electronic-controlled diesel engine with 1300 horsepower.
The tank is fully digitized with inertial navigation and GPS. Engineers also built a new fire extinguishing and explosion suppression system.
-- Mike Hoffman
